Here's what his Website says about him:

Barrie Roberts was born in Hampshire in 1939 and educated at Churcher's College, Petersfield. He has been an art student, civil servant, cable technician, music shop manager, folk singer, freelance journalist, printer, computer programmer, further education lecturer and manager of a large Students' Union.

For most of the last 30 years he has been a criminal lawyer, working for two firms in the West Midlands including the appeals of the Birmingham Six. Since 1998 he has taught an evening course for the City of Birmingham on Ghosts and Unsolved Mysteries and has also lectured on the Assassination of President John F Kennedy.

His hobbies consist of lazing about and reading about crimes and unsolved mysteries and occasionally going out to buy more books.